Plot: What’s it about?
Girl Most Likely is one strange film. Kristen Wiig stars as Imogene. She is a New York playwright who tries to win back her Ex by staging a suicide. Things backfire, however, when she is, instead sent to live with her mother (Annette Bening) in New Jersey. When she arrives back home she finds that her old room is being rented out to a man named Lee (Darren Criss). Her brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald) is very simple and sometimes walks around in a meta human shell. Her mother also has a man sleeping with her. Matt Dillon plays George, his secret identity is “The Bousche”. Like George Bush, get it? If that sounds strange enough for you so far then you should probably avoid the film at all costs. Imogene soon learns that her father is not dead (as her mother told her many years ago). She then decides to track him down. Kristen Wiig very hit-or-miss with me. Sometimes I do find her funny and she is certainly a capable actor, but here she mostly just mopes around. Her character (and the film as well) gets old very fast. The same can be said of pretty much every character in this film, they simply irritate. For as strange and off-beat as it is, a lot of its been done before, often in sitcoms. Her mother is overly eccentric and careless. The new boyfriend played by Matt Dillon is also a stock character that doesn’t really have an angle other than being odd. A relation builds between her and Lee, but they have no chemistry. The Ralph character could have been somewhat interesting, but the film fails to explain exactly WHAT is wrong with him. Clearly, he’s slow and simple, but it never gives us more than that. Let’s not get started on the metal, human shell he walks around with.
As I watched one of the brief features on this disc (more on that later) I learned that a couple of the produces couldn’t stop laughing at it. I didn’t find one thing remotely funny in this film. It’s hard to see how this project got the green-light. It presents simple, shallow characters that I cared little about. I don’t need every movie have lovable characters, but at least something of interest. It’s simply too bizarre to really get behind and go with. There is a semi interesting sub-plot regarding Imogene tracking down her father (played by Bob Balaban), but that’s only a small portion in an otherwise dull film. As a comedy, the laughs just aren’t there and as a drama, it’s just not involving enough for my taste. The film also gets rather silly near the end. By that time I was just ready for it to end. Maybe with a couple of rewrites this film would’ve been something special. As it stands, it’s just a strange film that has little reason for existence. I wanted to like it, but just couldn’t get into it.
Video: How’s it look?
The transfer here is a bit of a mixed bag. The AVC encoded image has strong detail in several scenes, but also seemed very dim looking. There’s a faded look to everything. This might be intentional, but I was expecting a more colorful transfer for such a recent film. The detail is strong though. I noticed more than a few grays in Matt Dillon’s hair. Outside of being a bit darker than I expected, I will say the print used is a good one. There were no traces of grain or print flaws to be found. Ultimately, this is a passable transfer, but the dim factor definitely takes it down a few notches.
Audio: How’s it sound?
There’s a DTS 5.1 HD track here and it fares a little better than the transfer. It’s not a demo-worthy track, but it was never intended to be that way. It’s a dialogue-driven film and the front channels handle most of the work. Vocals were always strong and clean and when the rear channels kick in, they were handled well. There is a nice, smooth sound to the track. There is a nice kick in a club scene in the first half of the film and a few other moments. Fans will be happy with the presentation here.
Supplements: What are the extras?
We get a sampling of supplements, but nothing too in-depth:
- Gag Reel – A small collection of outtakes.
- Deleted Scenes– You can probably guess by the time that there’s nothing of importance here.
- Life in the Human Shell – We learn about the human shell used in the film
- Making Most Likely – Is a self-congratulatory look at the making of the film.
- Previews
- UltraViolet Copy
